A.M. Roundup: Lobbying spending soars to $220M

Good morning! Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in Albany today, and will continue his post-budget spin blitz during an interview on WGDJ and WCNY later this morning. Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos will be on WOR. There will be protesters outside the Senate chamber. Some budget bills will be considered today, but final votes are expected Friday. Here are this morning’s headlines…

“What we said to the people of this state 15 months ago was, we’re going to bring competence, we’re going to bring integrity and we’re going to make the government perform,” Cuomo said. “We did last year, and with this budget, we did once again.” (NYT)

Yancey Roy: The road to a timely agreement was paved long ago. Cuomo and legislative leaders had a handshake deal to raise school and heath care aid 4 percent a year ago. And in December, they agreed to raise taxes on high earners — individuals earning $2 million or more annually and families earning $3 million or more. The tax hike covered the bulk of a $3 billion deficit the state faced.//By settling the typically most contentious issues ahead of time, lawmakers acknowledge that finding consensus on an overall state spending plan came easier than in previous years. (Newsday)

Tom Precious:All sides gave. Cuomo weakened some of his plan to allow transfers of money between agencies without legislative approval and to give up $200 million of a $250 million pot he wanted to use to award high-performing schools. Instead, it will go into the state’s overall school aid formula. That move will end up benefiting “high needs” districts, like Buffalo. Senate Republicans gave up a plan for tax breaks for businesses.//Off the table was an Assembly Democratic effort to create health exchanges to carry out the federal government’s new health insurance program, which is the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing this week. Cuomo said he will start the effort via executive order; he did not elaborate.//Assembly Democrats got $15 million for a 10 percent increase in basic welfare grant levels, community colleges and, with Senate Republicans, more operating money for schools. (BN)

Ken Lovett: Cuomo the younger portrays himself as an Albany outsider, but has excelled at the insider game.//He has that steamroller side to him and hasn’t been afraid to show it. But he also seems to understand that in order for a governor to win, the Legislature must walk away with its own victories. He governs with the classic “carrot-and-stick” approach. Or, as his former top aide, Steven Cohen, once famously said: “We operate at two speeds here: Get along and kill.”//One day, Cuomo’s bashing lawmakers; the next, he’s inviting them to the governor’s mansion.//To be sure, Cuomo doesn’t like being told “no,” and insists on getting what he wants — or some version of it. But his tenure in Albany has shown time and again that he knows the art of the deal.//It’s a major reason he has achieved so much in a relatively short period of time. (DN)

The New York Post: Certainly, the state could have done a lot worse than the deal struck in Albany did yesterday. Good work, Governor. (NYP)